GusMac

Hi Ozzy, can recommend the Micromesh clothes but I share your doubts about the Tamiya coarse polish. Used the coarse and fine on the canopy of my current Tamiya F-15C build but I'm pretty sure I could have gone straight from the highest grit Micromesh to the finish polish. It does look and feel freakily like toothpaste but as long as you keep it out of the bathroom you should be ok! Gotta agree about the Mr Surfacer as well, it's great stuff, especially the black 1500 if you want to go down the black-basing route. Never tried spraying the Tamiya enamels as they're hard to get in the UK but I find the acrylics spray much better when thinned with Mr Levelling thinner. The 'Owl' is looking great so far, looking forward to seeing the paint going on.

Wow Oliver, those are some serious scratch building skills there! Are the wheels and tyres from another kit or something you created yourself?

Nice start Cees. Lots of bits on that PE fret for adding interest.

Wow Micha, you are doing some fearsome artillery pieces at the moment. Never seen this kit before at all.

Hi Danny, how's progress with this one? I finally tracked down some of your Malheur champagne beer, wow it's lovely. I'm keeping the rest for when I'm off at Christmas so I can really enjoy them!

Hope you have a big workbench!

Wow, looks great Kent. I remember building the Humber kit as a kid and I never would have imagined it could be made into something so cool.

Nice finish, slightly worn but not overdone.

Will be nice to see what you have planned for the cockpit, etc, Cees.

Busy applying all the stencils, the downside of modern jets! Should get them finished tomorrow night. The kit decals are a little thick but settle down ok after a good dowsing of Micro Sol. The Cutting Edge decals are very nice and settle into the panel lines beautifully.

That looks great. Are you leaving the framing exposed as it looks very good?

Nice idea Kent. Look forward to seeing how this progresses. It's certainly a great start.

That's a pity about the bases Jeroen, but probably no surprise. At least you have something unique to display your models on

Very nice. The fading on the Ventura is lovely.

Nice mottling. Was that just free-handed?

Hi Dennis, thanks for all the details. Yes, basically my own impatience got the better of me! Having touched things up and sealed with a clear coat again, I'm going to leave it as it is. There's enough of the effect still visible to give it the lightly faded look I was after. I will be trying this again as I hate not getting something to work correctly, so this may influence the future build plan. Just got to work on the patience for next time.

Wow, looking great James. I sometimes doubt the necessity of some of the Eduard AM but those guns and ammo trays look stunning.

Hi Dennis, from the gist of your questions I can spot a couple of areas where I may have gone wrong but I'll go through it just to see if you agree. So, sprayed upper surfaces with warm water with a little washing-up liquid to break the surface tension and then ground on the salt. Dried with a coolish hair-dryer for 5 minutes or so. Thinned the Tamiya enamel paint with Humbrol enamel thinners and sprayed lightly over the surface. Left to dry for approx 25 minutes then washed the worst of the salt off under the tap. Remainder was then removed with wet kitchen towel. I think I probably didn't leave the sprayed layer long enough before I attempted to remove the salt and I was also too rough with the kitchen towel when doing that. What do you think? There may also be a possible incompatibility between the Tamiya enamel and the Humbrol thinner? I've pretty much managed to repair the damage without losing too much detail and a fair bit of the fading remains, so I'm happy to leave as it is. These were pretty new airframes at the time I'm aiming for (June 1982) and the Israeli's always looked after them so I think any fading would be pretty light. Another lesson is possibly that my test run was on too small an area - wing of a 1/48 Skyray so not too big - and the issues just didn't get a chance to show up. Anyway, after another light gloss coat to seal the repairs it'll be onto detail painting, decaling and weathering.

No pics, just profanity!! Had a clear afternoon so thought I'd have a good go at the salt fading. All seemed to go ok but when I washed the salt off, disaster! It seemed to have attacked the underlying clear coat and paint leaving a very rough surface and exposed primer in places. Seemed to be especially bad on the Gunze colours used for the insignia. Spent the rest of the session swearing and trying to retrieve the situation. Sanded back the roughened surface and re-sprayed the damaged sections. Insignia repaired tonight, so hopefully tomorrow night I can unmask those and repeat the clear coat. Should then have an idea of where I am. Trying new things is great when they work but a pain in the ass when they don't. Ah well, live and learn!

Those bases do look sweet Jeroen. Did you ever make any progress with doing them commercially?

Really looking forward to seeing some details on the Phantoms. I can appreciate why people are excited by the Ju52, but it just doesn't do it for me - reminds me of a flying corrugated iron shed.

Wow, looks like it's floating in a sea of lava there Nick! Beautiful results though.

Looks great Peter, nicely worn but not too beaten up. It would be great if they would scale this up to a new 1/32 scale kit as well.

Hi Dennis, thanks for the info on the enamels. Good to know it's possible but having never airbrushed them I think I will stick with the acrylics. I put the clear coat down as I wasn't sure about putting such a thinned layer on top of the existing paint. Just wasn't sure if the Mr Levelling thinner was 'hot' enough to do damage, although the quantity should be pretty small. Better safe than sorry was the thinking. I used Matt McDougall's method of Tamiya X-22 then a mist of the Mr Levelling and I have to say it worked a treat. This build has been great for trying new techniques which have so far all worked great. (Goes and touches something wooden!!) Cheers, Gus

Thanks Bevan. Got the gloss coat on tonight, so now it's adventures with salt!